Like Ewan McGregor talks about in his "Long Way Down" DVD... I don't care about facts and figures too much... I don't care about the particulars of "what happened when" that awful much... what I want is to breathe in a land, hear its people talk about it... I want to come to know the personality, the spirit, of a land... not just compile a list of the Tourist Traps I notched on my Travelers Belt

Thursday, November 19, 2009

PLEASE LET ME DIE

This picture of a circuit riding preacher looks a lot like Dan

This is a true story of my friend.

PLEASE LET ME DIE!!

(By: Dan Revoir)

Pain!! Pain!! Pain!! Convulsing, agonizing pain! Worse than anything I had ever experienced or could even imagine! My body engulfed my gut-wrenching, excruciating pain! Like a medieval torture chamber where bodies were torn apart on the rack, it starts to crescendo like a terrible timpani increasing in tempo, until it seems like your are going out of your mind! The unbelievable, terrifying horror reaches the limits of impossibility…and the pain keeps getting worse!

I screamed inside, “It is not possible for anything to hurt this bad! I’ve reached my threshold of pain tolerance. This madness must stop or I will pass out!”

Maybe it’s a prayer or a cry of desperation from the depths of my soul but the darkness and peace do not come. Instead, the world starts spinning, waves of nausea overwhelm my body, dizziness sets in, and in seconds I am soaked with perspiration, reeling like a whirling dervish. The vomiting starts, as I lie curled up in the fetal position on the floor! Gagging begins. Retching and vomiting continues in a never-ending cycle, gasping for air as torrents of vomit spew from my convulsing body! Could it be? Is it possible that I could suffocate or possibly drown in my own vomit?

Keep breathing! You have to have air! What a horrible, disgusting way to die, suffocating with your lungs filled with vomit. I just want to get it over with and stop fighting the retching; maybe after this terrible bout is finished there will be a brief reprieve – a time to lie on the floor and rest for a few minutes before it starts again!

It does not stop; but now it’s a bitter, foul-tasting green fluid erupting like some creature in a horror movie. Again and again, over and over the unseen assailant stabs his knife into my guts. Stabbing and slashing like a crazed maniac trying to disembowel his victim, not satisfied with just killing but taking greatest pleasure in watching him writhe in agony waiting for him to die!

God, where are you? I need you now! The pangs of death are upon me! God, where is your grace and mercy?! God, please, I beg of you, let this be the worst nightmare I have ever had! Please, God, please let me wake up and find myself in my bed, soaked with sweat, with my blankets twisted about me! God, please! Please, let me wake up! Please, let this be a terrible nightmare!

Martha, my wife, wore a horrified expression on her face as she looked in disbelief at the carnage that laid on the floor; it mirrored the living hell that I had entered into a few moments ago.

“Get me to the hospital,” the words poured out between the spasms of vomiting. My precious wife tried to help me get dressed to go out in the blizzard we were having in South Boardman, Michigan. This was very difficult since she was on crutches and had a full cast on her left leg. Controlled panic is the only words to describe her actions. What a pathetic sight it must have been to see this little five foot, four inch, 120 pound woman trying to help a hulking six foot, three inch, 217 pound man though the door. We were bundled up against the cold, carrying a wastepaper basket for me to use for vomiting.

The stinging cold snaps me back to reality, which brings coldness to the pit of my being. This is not a dream; this is really happening! I am not having a nightmare. This is reality! It is actually happening to me!

The doctor at Kalkaska Medical Center admitted me and immediately gave me a shot for the nausea and pain. No results. The vomiting was still intense only now the emesis pan contained only bile. Another pain shot. No relief…nothing touched the pain. The doctor’s diagnosis was a gall bladder attack but by morning they realized something was dreadfully wrong. I was transported to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Michigan. The pain never stopped or even reached a point of being tolerable. A series of x-rays were taken and a nasal-gastro (N.G.) tube was inserted through my nose into my stomach in order to stop the vomiting. My heart rate began to climb because of the incessant pain so the doctor admitted me to the Intensive Care Unit. My heart was pounding at the rate of over 250 beats a minute! They expected my heart to stop and cautioned Martha that my condition was critical. Then things took a turn for the worse!

This was not the first time we had been in ICU. It seemed that doctors and hospitals and ICU wards had played a major part of our married life.

Several Painful Weeks Later …

I had surgery on March 5, 1986, six weeks after the onset of my initial attack. Dr. Benner’s suspicions were correct, his diagnosis: acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis. An abscess had formed on my pancreas and had ruptured into my body cavity. The “fluid” made up of infectious poison and enzymes destroy or “eat up” everything it touches and keeps spreading to all parts of the body. Another man about my age was admitted to Munson Hospital with the same disease and he only lasted two days.

The sentence of death was upon me and there was only one person in the universe that I could turn to, my heavenly Father. Life is His to take or give. My condition was classified beyond critical to grave. There was no hope. The nurses in ICU would hug Martha and tell her there was no change. Actually, there was no chance.

My body began to swell and I continued to vomit the sickly, black fluid. Once again, the horrible nightmare started to spread throughout my entire abdominal cavity. It was necessary for them to remove all my organs to facilitate cleaning out the infection, which had spread all the way around my ribs into my back. This sounds rather ghastly, but the saber slash had not been sutured after the first surgery since this facilitated the nurses cleansing out as much infection as they could reach. During the second surgery they removed my gall bladder and as much of the pancreas and gangrenous tissue as possible. Then they flushed out my whole body and inserted five large drains in my back with pumps on them to pump out the infection. Surgery required 12 units of blood and it lasted for about seven hours. Again, they did not suture the gaping wound across my stomach.

Upon returning from surgery, 28 tubes protruded in and out of my body; the average human body has seven openings. A machine accomplished my breathing.

My family was horrified when they brought me back from surgery. Martha’s reaction was that I looked like a monster! Again, my body was swollen at least three times the normal size. They had just covered me with a wet towel. The second “saber slash” was wide open and I was covered with blood. The sheet was covered with blood. “We knew you were going to die at any moment,” the doctor told us.

PURIFYING GOLD I was having a discussion with my two brothers who work in a jeweler’s shop. The topic was old gold. They had several old brooches and necklaces, and some well-worn rings. At first appearance it seemed to be just a bunch of worthless junk costume jewelry. My brother John laughed at my observation, saying there’s no such thing as junk gold jewelry because it merely needs to be put in a crucible and melted and it would once again become pure gold. The crucible is a container which withstands very high temperatures and it is used to melt precious metals. The gold of my faith has been gathered in bits and pieces through accidents, surgeries, and a variety of pain… some of which seemed to be useless or of no consequence like the junk gold. But it was as though God was putting them all into an unseen crucible to which there was still another element that needed to be added before it could be put into the furnace.

There is a broad spectrum of pain that can range from discomfort at one end, to excruciating, agonizing pain at the other end, which will drive a person to the verge of suicide. I talked with a doctor one day about the most severe pain a person can endure. Of course, a person’s tolerance for pain is a decided factor. But there is pain that is worse than physical pain. Pain that rips and tears the heart and soul but never leaves a visible scar. He enumerated the four worse pains a person can experience in the medical realm:

1) An aneurysm (or the ballooning of an artery in the heart) before it ruptures

2) A tick that goes through the cheek like a red hot rod of steel

3) A person in the advanced stages of bone cancer; and

4) Acute pancreatitis

These pains are impervious to any pain medication and can cause those patients to commit suicide out of sheer desperation. It is pain which makes you sick in your innermost being, when you have that overwhelming, depressing, feeling that no one in the world can understand, unless they have been there.

Another strange force started inside me. A terrible rage overwhelmed me. I begged for enough water to wet my tongue. It was denied! I asked for a sheet to keep the ice from touching me and it was denied! And I could not see any reason for it; I was going to die anyway. So I responded in anger. I was furious. I started tearing out the tubes in my mouth and nose. The doctors patiently, stubbornly reinserted them. Then I would pull them out again. Over and over and over we repeated this procedure until they restrained me. Even while restrained I would crouch over until I could reach the tubes and jerk them out again. Martha said that when she came into my room I would be holding the sides of the bed shaking my head in anger. Later they performed a tracheotomy on me, probably figuring that would be harder for me to tear out. Like a wounded animal, I reached the primeval instinct of fighting for survival or struggling to die.

Yes … I became angry with God in some of my weakest moments. From the depths of my soul I cried, “It is enough! God, let me die! God, I want to come home. I cannot stand the pain any longer. Father, you promise in your Word that you are faithful and would not allow us to be tested above what we are able to bear. You promise you will provide a way of escape, in order that we can bear it. You swore by your own Name to keep every promise in your Word. Father, God, you are bound by your own Word and if you fail to keep it, then you are not God! I cannot stand the pain. I have reached my last limit of endurance. God, please help me…or let me die!”

To order a copy of Dan's precious, 114 page book written to offer comfort and insight to the suffering, titled: Please let Me Die! - You can obtain one by calling or writing the address below. It is made available for $7.95. Postage and handling is included in this price.

Dan Revoir

917 Dorothy N.W.

Grand Rapids, MI 49504

616-363-8045

In addition to being a prayer warrior for the afflicted ... Dan is a very qualified minister, preacher and teacher of God’s Word. Feel free to contact him and see how God might use him in your church.